Pakistan, China, and the secret helicopter: Can U.S.-Pakistan relations recover?

The WeekStaff

Part of the damaged Navy SEALs helicopter: Pakistan's intelligence service may have allowed Chinese military engineers to examine the helicopter wreckage for clues to its top-secret design. REUTERS

August 16, 2011

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In the latest sign of fraying relations between the U.S. and Pakistan, Islamabad allegedly allowed China to examine the top-secret stealth helicopter that was downed in the U.S. Navy SEALs' mission to kill Osama bin Laden, the Financial Times reports. U.S. intelligence officials even believe Chinese military engineers took home samples of the modified Black Hawk's radar-evading skin. Is this a sign the alliance between the U.S. and Pakistan is damaged beyond repair?

Washington will repair the relationship: It's in America's interest to patch things up, says Mark Mazzetti in The New York Times. So high-ranking Obama administration officials are trying to "dial back tensions before they do permanent damage to the shaky alliance." The "mutual distrust and competing agendas" make relations with Pakistan a huge headache, but "the prospect of Washington permanently severing ties with a nuclear-armed country as volatile as Pakistan would be far more dangerous.""U.S. aides believe China examined stealth copter"

It is getting harder to see the point in this: Congress has been debating cutting off aid to Pakistan all year, says Jazz Shaw at Hot Air, and it's a dilemma: If we do cut off the cash, we might just drive Pakistan "further into the arms of China." But "when so much of the money we send them seems to wind up being poured directly into corruption and decay, it begins to look like we're actually fueling the problem and paying off the bad guys to act slightly less badly.""Super! Pakistan lets China see downed U.S. stealth helicopter"